Chapter 2 #2
She leaps up from the chair and nearly trips over the shoes she kicked off just a couple of minutes ago, somehow clumsier in her bare feet than in heels.
Catching herself before she topples over, she starts pacing back and forth.
Drunk Bianca he didn’t recognize, but this one he does; it’s exactly what happens when she’s working through a tough passage in her research, connecting the pieces in her head, letting that brilliance that’s stunned him every day for the last five years work its magic until finally she’s arrived at the perfect solution.
And when she stops directly in front of him and her eyes sparkle down at his and a slow smile starts to tug at her lips, Xavier feels a tiny sliver of impossible hope start to form in his chest.
“It would serve them right for not showing up tonight, like, ‘Sorry you missed my engagement because you thought it wasn’t important enough to celebrate the actual biggest moment of my life.’ ”
She’s pacing again.
“So let’s do it,” he says, warming to the idea, the beginnings of a plan forming in his head. “I have a ring.”
That stops her dead in her tracks. “You randomly have an engagement ring?”
“I carry it around in my pocket just in case.” She sends him a mildly unimpressed glare. “No, not on me, but at my place. It was my mom’s from when she married my dad. When they got divorced, she kept it, and then she left it to me when she passed away.”
Her mouth drops open again, eyes wide and unblinking. He’s not sure he’s ever seen her like this, back-footed and stunned. She’s always so sure of herself and capable. The change has him reeling, which is the only explanation for the absolute crazy talk he’s been spewing for the last few minutes.
Finally, she seems to collect herself. “Xavier, that’s . . . no, that’s your mom’s ring, it wouldn’t be right.”
He should feel relieved. She’s giving him an out and he should take it. But instead he’s just disappointed. He wants to do this. For her, obviously. No other reason.
“I mean we could just buy a crappy fake one.”
Oh, so she didn’t mean . . . She was just worried about the ring.
He shrugs. “It’ll add some authenticity to the whole thing. Besides, it’s just a ring, and since I don’t plan on ever actually getting married, it’s just going to rot away in its box.”
“You don’t plan on getting married?”
Huh, well, maybe he’s a little drunker than he realized because apparently he’s just saying shit to her now, things he never even admitted fully to himself.
“Who’d want me?”
It’s half a joke, but barely half. He’d seen enough misery in his parents’ marriage, or at least the fallout of it. That’s not something he’s interested in inflicting on himself or anyone else.
“Uh, have you looked at yourself recently?” she asks, and that burrito hasn’t soaked up all of that tequila yet because in the five years he’s known her, she’s never, ever commented on his looks. “Half the undergrads we teach take Archaeology 101 just so they can stare at you for a semester.”
He feels like he should be offended, but she said it so sweetly, devoid of any sarcasm, like it’s just a fact.
Xavier knows he’s attractive. He’s known it since he was in elementary school and all the valentines would pile up on his desk and some of the girls used to dare each other to kiss him on the cheek at recess.
But Bianca always seemed kind of immune to it and sometimes maybe a little bit annoyed by it, as if it was something he could control.
“I don’t mean . . .” He motions at his face.
“I mean who’d want my life? Traveling from place to place, working on grants, finishing one job then moving on to the next, never settling.
People who want to get married want the opposite of that, right?
Besides that, my parents got divorced when I was five; my dad’s been married four times. The Byrnes suck at marriage.”
And they suck at being anything close to resembling a family.
Him included.
“Most people suck at marriage. The divorce rate is fifty percent. Half my friends who got married are already divorced . . . or should be.”
“This is what I’m saying, so the ring isn’t a big deal. You put it on, take a couple of pictures, post them and let everyone in your life freak out like they deserve for blowing you off. Let them feel bad about it for a day or two and then be like, psych!”
“Psych! Really?” she asks, falling to the couch beside him, letting her head fall back against the cushions with a sigh, and he shifts around in his seat to look down at her.
“Really,” he says. “What do you think?”
She doesn’t get up and pace, doesn’t do anything except look at him. He’s not entirely sure what she’s looking for in his eyes, so he just stares back and lets her consider, until finally, she seems to decide.
“Let’s do it.”
He only lives a few blocks away from her and so he heads out into the night to go and get the ring. Shoving his hand into the pockets of the cargo jacket he threw on when the evening temperature dipped below normal for LA in May, he lets the cool night air do its thing and sober him up a bit.
Five minutes ago this felt like a great idea, like a way to spend just a little more time with the only real connection he’s made in his years in LA.
But with the concrete under his feet and with every stride that carries him further away from her, reality starts to set in.
There’s a reason he pulled away the last few months, and while their dissertations and upcoming defenses were a convenient excuse, really he just needed some space, needed to keep the feelings of respect and admiration and attraction from coalescing into something way stronger than just friendship.
The distance helped . . . a lot.
And now he’s just diving in head first again.
But it’s just to help her out, to get her friends and family to see that flaking on her was a shitty thing to do.
He’s leaving soon, too soon for it to become anything more.
Letting himself into his apartment, he navigates around the boxes stacked in the living room.
He’s still got a couple of weeks until he has to move out, but his sublet is up at the end of the academic year and most of his shit is headed to storage while he hopes he can find a few couches to surf on before he leaves for Greece.
His mentor, Paolo, has a job waiting for him there, helping in repatriation efforts of some artifacts that have been sitting in museums and private collections for a few hundred years, when they should be back where they belong in their home country.
Bianca’s Greek. At least her last name is, and he’s pretty sure that’s where her long dark curls – that he’s spent more time than he’d like to admit imagining twisting around his fingers or spread out over his pillow – come from. Maybe she’ll appreciate his efforts on behalf of her ancestors.
The ring is exactly where he left it, in a box labeled Miscellaneous that also holds some of his childhood things that haven’t left the crate they arrived in since his mom passed away five years ago.
Opening the small velvet box, he studies the ring carefully.
He doesn’t have any memories of his mother actually wearing the thing.
Can’t even picture it on her finger. It definitely doesn’t look like the sparkling monstrosities he’s seen some women wearing.
It’s old, he knows that. His dad bought it in the late eighties, but it’s probably a hundred years older than that.
The band is thin and pinkish gold, with a circular diamond, maybe a karat in size or a little more, in the center, surrounded by much smaller diamonds.
Elegant and original.
A lot like the girl he’s going to give it to.
He lifts it from the cushion holding it in place and slides it on to his pinky, but it doesn’t even go past his knuckle. His mom was little too, like Bianca. Hopefully it’ll fit.
Shit.
His mom.
She would not love this idea.
His mom believed in love. She’d loved his dad even though his dad is a complete asshole.
You don’t get to choose who you love.
It’s something she’d always tell him.
He’d read a book back in undergrad where that supposedly happened to the hero. The poor bastard fell in love against his will and then spent the rest of the book trying to figure out how the hell to live without her because she didn’t love him back.
Xavier never really bought into it. He’s a grown man and fully capable of controlling his emotions, no matter how attracted he is.
So, he puts the ring in its box and heads back out into the night, back to Bianca’s apartment.
Maybe by the time he gets there, she’ll have changed her mind.
Maybe she’ll have sobered up a bit and laugh herself silly when he shows up at her front door with this ring.
Maybe she’ll have passed out on her couch and won’t even answer the door.
And despite just how in control he is, that would probably be the best possible thing to happen.
He could go home, pack up the rest of his shit, send her a text to congratulate her one more time and then never see her again aside from the occasional post online.
And eventually she’ll end up with another guy.
Some guy who’ll take one look at her, with those curves, wild hair and bright sparkling eyes and her brilliant mind and decide not to let her go, and then she’ll post a picture with a different ring on her finger and he’ll try to be happy for her and that will be that.
Jesus Christ, he’s definitely still a little drunk.
He only gets like this, depressed and maudlin, when he mixes alcohol and his fucking feelings.
And he’s been outside her apartment for a few minutes now, not going up the stairs and just staring up at the window that looks over the street. The light is still on.
C’mon, Byrne, suck it up and just do it.
Once he gets his feet moving, he takes the steps two at a time. The door is still unlocked, which has him clicking his teeth in disapproval of himself for not locking it on his way out and her for not locking it behind him.
“What were the odds that someone was just going to randomly try the door in the twenty minutes you were gone,” she says, not on the couch where he left her, but in the little corner of the room that passes for a kitchen, pouring out clear liquid into two red solo cups.
“What’s this for?”
“So we can drink to our fengagement?”
“Fengagement? Fake engagement?”
“He’s smart.”
“He does okay.”
“More than okay,” she insists and hands him a cup and lifts hers. “To . . . us, I guess?”
Lifting his in return, he shakes his head ruefully. “To us.” He drinks it, letting it settle on his tongue gently before swallowing it down. “That’s good. Ouzo?”
“You’ve had it?”
“On occasion.”
“I bought this bottle in Greece when we were there for my sister’s wedding. She said we’d drink it to celebrate, but I think we should drink it tonight instead.”
“Sounds good to me, boss.”
Holding out his cup, she smiles wide and bright as she pours them both another.
“Okay, down to business,” he says, rubbing his hands together and then pulling out the box from his pocket. “Your fengagement ring.”
But then he hesitates. He’s not sure of the protocol here. Should he get down on a knee? No, that’d be stupid. They’re not actually getting engaged. Instead, he just holds it out to her to take.
Which she does and then stops. “Can I?”
“Obviously, that’s the point, right?”
“Right,” she agrees and then opens the box. “Oh, it’s beautiful.” Then her brow furrows. “I thought you said it was your mother’s. Rose gold was a thing in the nineties?”
“Rose gold’s been a thing since the nineteenth century.”
“You know a lot about jewelry?”
“I know a lot about antiquities.”
“You get that from your mom? So that’s why archaeology and repatriation and . . .” She trails off.
“She’s smart.”
“She does okay.”
“Way more than okay.”
And that makes her smile come back, and shit, if that isn’t addictive as hell, having her look at him like that. He can imagine that maybe that’s the face she’d make after a few hours in his bed.
Better not imagine that too much, actually.
“You should try it on,” he manages to rasp.
“I . . .” She hesitates. “Maybe this isn’t . . .”
“What, you getting cold feet on me?” But she still doesn’t make a move toward the ring.
“Okay, how about this?” He takes the box and slides the ring out of it before reaching for her hand.
When did they get this close together? He can smell the scent of something a little powdery and floral in her hair, sweet and subtle.
Taking her left hand, he lifts it. He manages to suppress the urge to press his mouth against the inside of her wrist and instead, slides the ring onto her fourth finger gently.
It fits.
Because of course it does.
Just a little extra sweet torture from the universe on this absolute shitshow of a plan he’s concocted.
He steps back. He needs space. Needs to escape the scent of her and the smooth skin of the back of her hand.
Shit, he needs more ouzo.
“So, what, should I just take a picture of my hand? That’s what everyone does, right?”
He’s seen enough of those posts over the years, his own friends finding someone to settle down with.
“Nah, we should do something a little bit different.”
“What did you have in mind?”
And of course it goes against everything his brain was telling him to do just seconds ago, but honestly, he doesn’t give a damn. If they’re gonna do this, they should do it right.
He steps closer, reaching out, his hand landing at her hip. “Is this okay?” he asks, drawing her in with just the lightest pressure.
She just hums her acceptance. And that’s one more thing he’d like to know, if that’s the sound she’d make every time his mouth finds just the right spot.
“Okay,” he says, pulling his phone from his back pocket and opening the camera. “Here, you take this. And what if I . . .” His free hand finds hers and lifts it toward his mouth. “Is that okay?”
His lips brush the inside of her wrist, the skin there softer than he imagined, her scent stronger, probably where she’d dabbed on some perfume before the party, and he doesn’t look up until she clears her throat gently.
“What do you think?” she asks, holding his phone out, showing him the picture.
And yeah, that’s . . . exactly what he imagined. His pale skin contrasting against her olive tones, his five o’clock shadow standing out, reminding him that he hasn’t shaved since yesterday, and his mother’s ring on her finger.
“It’s perfect,” he says, honestly the only possible thing he could say, because it is. Absolutely perfect. Even if it is complete bullshit. “Post that and give them the shock of their lives.”